Let's talk something I understand little of this morning. Let's talk taxes. Here's what I know: I am taxed. I pay. Sometimes they pay me back. I know little else.
I know that this year, an election year, there will be much talk about tax rates. Both sides have staked a flag in the dirt of fair tax rates. Both sides will say that the fairness of tax rates is one of the most important of issues in this financial driven presidential race.
What is fair? Should we pay taxes to this government? Should their be equality in our system for the poor and the rich?
I do not know my tax rate, though I'm confident my very educated readership knows theirs. I pay. Sometimes they pay me back. That's my tax knowledge taken from years and years of tax reform pondering (or simply from getting or not getting a refund).
Tuesday night our president talked quite a bit about the fairness and equality of our tax rates. "We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it," Obama insisted. "When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich. It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference."
Really. Is that what it means? I read a story yesterday about the huge numbers of CEOs in this country making more than $50 million. I suspect others read the same story, I equally suspect that the readers of that story thought first they wished they could earn that many. I suspect, also, that many didn't think first about the fairness of that person's tax rates. I just don't think that.
I pay. Sometimes they pay me back. I don't actually know what tax breaks I need or get. My tax lady, Toni, knows this stuff I assume, though I do not actually know this. So I don't know if I'm the one who has caused this deficit everyone seems to be talking about or not. It could be on me. I pay. Sometimes they pay me back.
In my constant seeking of knowledge, I did a word-search for "tax" in the Bible. In the NIV, there were 10 references. Ten. I'm going to let you look them up.
They are:
1 Samuel 17:25
Ezra 4:13
Ezra 4:20
Ezra 7:24 (Ezra was a popular tax consultant, apparently)
Matthew 17:25
Luke 20:20
Luke 20:22
Luke 23:2
Romans 13:6
Romans 13:7
That's it, compadre. The whole enchilada. The whole, uh, dish. The most famous, or course, is that time in Luke's Gospel where Jesus was asked about paying taxes and the answer, bottom line, was pay to Caesar what was Caesar's and pay to God what was God's. It's almost like the question of tithing: Do you tithe on the gross or the net?
But for our purposes this morning, I suspect the Ezra line is most important. Again it reads, "Furthermore, the king should know that if this city is built and its walls are restored, no more taxes, tribute or duty will be paid, and eventually the royal revenues will suffer." In other words, if no taxes are taken up, the government's resources will suffer. Eventually, it goes without writing or saying, the government will not be able to help its own people.
Where's the fairness and equity in that? Again, I pay and I get paid. I know little more than that. Except, except this: I suspect that many of those (I suspect but don't know) gazillionares who are being taxed sometimes at lower rates than many of the middle-class because of what is know affectionately as tax-loopholes, aren't tithers, but the loopholes they're using are often those used for charities. If they aren't giving, who will?
In the end, Jesus was far more interested in us giving to God what is his I suspect than us giving to the Emperor what is his. He was far more interested in us being willing to give than in the giving itself in many ways. He was, I know, more interested in the heart and the interest in others than he was interested in the head and us doing something because it would help us with a loophole. Finally, I'm pretty darn sure he didn't make a big wage after he went into the ministry.
What is fair? I don't know. I pay. Sometimes I get paid.
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